I have been using MagicDraw/SysML to support teaching design of logistics systems–warehouses, factories, supply chains–for about 15 years. I’m exploring transitioning to Arcadia, as I already teach the RFLP design methodology. However, at the moment I’m stymied in trying to model material flows in Arcadia. Producing a product in a factory or an order in a warehouse involves transforming discrete units of material, transporting, assembling, etc. I think I see how to use capability modeling, functional modeling and logical modeling in Arcadia, but I am struggling with modeling the physical objects that flow through the system of interest and are transformed by it. I would really appreciate any insight that experienced Arcadia practitioners might have.
Hi,
My experience is following: preparing a PoC for a complex product, I founded a second project to describe manufacturing process: Then the product is represented by an exchange item (you may have several) which is typed by a class. In the class you may add as many properties as you want. Classes may have a state/mode machine where you can describe some configurations.
In this kind of model, manufacturing operation is a function, allocated to a behavior component which can be named after kind of processing (machining/stamping/transporting…) and tool/facility is component node. Physical links are conveyors. About kind of product, I would say discrete product (or countable) would be shared data, and continuous ones (metal profiles; liquids; gas…or sand) would be flows. I would suggest after each manufacturing operation, the EI changes to reflect new state, but could refer to same class pending on the existence of a main flow in the MBOM tree.
About assembly: classes may have composition relations which should help. EI can represent any kind of scraps to dispose out from the process.
Active manufacturing (when the product participates to its own manufacturing) may have to be represented on product model to describe better the exact action of the product and the machine. In this case, I would list active pump during filling up an hydraulic circuit, downloading softwares , autotune…